


The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Hannibal Lecter

by words_of_a_broken_man



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: AU, Bedannibal - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, French Revolution, History Fic, Mild Smut, academic porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 23:43:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12069390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_of_a_broken_man/pseuds/words_of_a_broken_man
Summary: Having operated an underground surgical clinic at the Artes de Paris alongside Bedelia during the French Revolution, a shell-shocked, disillusioned Hannibal assumes a position as anatomy professor at the Palazzo di Archiginnasio in Bologna.For @electric-couple prompt "Historical AU"My first attempt at tackling anything AU, removing the toys out of the box and throwing them into the revolution...  I think it's somewhere between costume drama, comedy and Mills and Boon?





	The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Hannibal Lecter

In very little time, he had become the darling of the Palazzo di Archiginnasio; studiolo and patrons alike enamored with his flair and candor.   Unlike his predecessor who barked instructions at assistants, the charming Lithuanian dissected personally as he lectured; elegant fingers dancing a macabre ballet beneath his steady baritone Latin. To the older Bolognese anatomists, he was little more than a crude, undignified _straniero_ , a curiosity; viscera rightly the domain of assistants and butchers. No gentleman could find beauty in such an act, but Hannibal Lecter elevated it to an art worthy of his growing audience. His routine dissections on the final Friday of the month had gained such notoriety, scholars and laymen alike travelled from afar to jostle for position beneath the spruce renderings of Apollo and Hippocrates in the theatre. When the Studiolo began charging a modest admission fee, the Gonfaloniere (following some subtle ‘persuasion’) gladly scheduled executions for the preceding day to ensure the finest possible specimens for the budding Professore. 

Packed with men of influence across all endeavors, the theatre heaved in anticipation; the Gonfaloniere assumed position alongside the Studiolo and other academics. Councilors, men of law, scholars and nobles packed side by side beneath the ominous inscription _“Memento Mori”_ above the renderings of gods and philosophers. As executions found favour with the masses, dissection held fascination with the gentry; and the affluent horde awaited their champion.

Lecter strode purposefully toward the marble dissection table in the centre of the theatre, the room falling silent as patrons caught sight of the lean, elegant man circling the slab. He hardly resembled an academic; too lithe, too strong to be a coddled intellectual. He eschewed the robes and finery of the nobility who observed him, dressed plainly in a white shirt and dark brown breaches a heavy leather apron shielding his chest. Lecter rolled up his sleeves, surveying the array of instruments on the table beside him. This was his stage, and now, for the solo. 

“Gentlemen.” He began, Latin too perfect, a hint of something quietly foreign and exotic glazing each word. “Senor Gonfaloniere, learned colleagues. This afternoon, we examine the musculature of the upper and lower limbs, followed by detailed dissection of the thoracic cavity and upper abdomen.”

In a swift move, he whipped the away sheet covering the corpse on the dissection table, a handful of audible gasps permeated the silence as his disciples took in the pale figure supine on the slab, face frozen in pain, ligature marks visible around his neck. 

“Before we start, may I take the opportunity to thank this young man for his contribution to science, and his commitment to furthering our knowledge of the human form.”

Laughter erupted from the pocket of the theatre housing members of the judiciary and council. Hannibal selected a glimmering blade from his array of instruments.

“Let’s begin.”

With deft flourishes of his blade he skinned a forearm, talking through every muscle group, demonstrating the lever-action of the tendon structure of the wrist. Upper arm followed; audience enthralled as he seemingly made the corpse’s hand and fingers dance of their own volition. He repeated the process on a leg to the similar applause. Hannibal worked fast; years of patching damaged bodies throughout the revolution refined his speed and accuracy. Dissection of the trunk followed; he carefully removed every organ, arranging them neatly in order on the table beside the cadaver until the man was little more than a partially flayed shell.

“Professore! Professore!”

“Yes, young man?” 

Hannibal’s attention turned to a scholarly boy of no more than 16 clinging eagerly to the railing, leering at the corpse.

“The head! Can we see the brain?”

Hannibal wiped blood from his hands on a cloth and appealed to his audience. A rousing cheer spread around the theatre.

“I was going to say my work here is done.” Hannibal began, the room falling into silence. He reached for the bone saw in the centre of his instrument tray, catching sight of a fine-boned, elegant youth huddled near the entrance to the theatre, the enthusiasm of his peers absent. Hannibal’s gaze lingered. 

“But we are here to learn, are we not?”

 

****

 

Hannibal paced his chamber, shedding his bloodied shirt as the final shards of daylight spilled through the window. He glanced out across the piazza, the beauty of every building committed to memory. Steam drifted from the basin of hot, rosemary-spiked water his assistant had prepared. He began to slowly wash his hands and forearms, water staining pink in his wake.

“Professore?” The voice of his assistant broke his thoughts.

“Yes, Giovanni?”

“There is a young man for you. From the Arts de Paris?”

“Does he have a name?”

“Benoit, sir.”

“Send him in.”

Hannibal continued to bathe, all the while watching the door; there was no ‘Benoit’ in his time at the Parisian faculty. His hand slid along the bench and around the handle of a scalpel. The fine boned, small youth from the corner of the theatre appeared in his doorway, leather folio under one arm. A smile danced across his lips. 

“Close the door.”

The youth obliged, taking a seat on a small lounge adjacent the basin.

“You don’t need the blade, Hannibal.”

“You ought to be careful.” Hannibal put down the scalpel. “If someone exposes you during one of my lectures you may find yourself on stage next month, Dr Du Maurier.”

“It’s illegal to dissect women, Hannibal.” Bedelia du Maurier removed her cap; flaxen hair cascading down around her shoulders, her elegant form masked by a gentlemen’s coat, breeches and boots.

“In some places, yes.” He dunked a cloth into the basin. “In Bologna the law is no obstacle, and the Palazzo theatre no place for a lady.”

“This, I had to see with my own eyes.”   She stood up, joining him at the basin. “The great surgeon, Hannibal Lecter; toast of the revolution carving up murderers to amuse Papal academics.” She took in the scent of the water. “Rosemary?”

“It’s manifestly inadequate in masking the aroma of blood, yet the Italians are quite enamored with it.” Hannibal shrugged. “Strangely enough it seems only to enhance one’s appetite.”

“You think you have them fooled, Hannibal?” She plucked the cloth from the basin and pressed it to his chest, the water trickled down his stomach, cooling in the twilight air.

“I could ask you the same.” Hannibal gently tugged at the lapel of her coat. “This is quite the charade. Did you travel all the way from Paris in disguise?”

“If you care to discard your fantasies, Hannibal.” Bedelia continued to gently sponge his chest. “I’ve taken a room at the Palazzo Ghisilardi-Fava and I assure you, I travelled in appropriate clothing.”

“Shame you didn’t send word, I would have gladly entertained you here at the Archiginnasio.”

“You don’t honestly believe the studiolo see you as one of their own, Comte de Lecter?” She dragged the cloth down his stomach. “Or is it Professore Lecter now, the gentleman scholar? That was quite a performance.”

“All the world’s a stage, Bedelia.” He smiled. “I merely found a role to play.”

“How you succeeded in finding an audience receptive to your, ‘talents’ continues to astound.”

“What brings you to Bologna, Bedelia?” He took the cloth from her hand, pressing it to his face. “The authorities here have little regard for women of science.”

“Napoleon closed our faculty clinic at the Arts de Paris, I thought you’d like your papers.” She gestured toward the leather bound drawings on the lounge.  

“If those walls could talk… Or scream.” Hannibal dried himself, walking across to collect the folder. “And what of France?

“They are establishing schools in Paris, Bordeaux and Montpellier.” She trailed him to his desk, watching as he sat sifting through his papers. She shrugged her coat, letting it slip to the floor before perching herself on the desk in front of him as he reclined in his chair.

Bedelia reveled in his lean efficient form draped across the ornately carved chair; in simple low-slung trousers he looked more gentleman-bandit than scholar. She recalled hours spent watching him retrieving musket-balls from wild-eyed screaming men, sewing and cauterizing bayonet wounds.   In Marat’s words, ‘a hero of our revolution without ever lifting a finger in anger.’ Sadly he had no knowledge of the Comte and Comtesse de la Marche who affronted him at the opera one night. Then there was the Marquis De Bellay, the Magistrate of Mont Marte…   She smiled at the recollection of his work; the irony of a Lithuanian noble silently preying on the French aristocracy never lost on her, particularly when food was so scarce…

“Are you happy here, Hannibal?’ She cast her eyes around his modestly furnished chamber. “This feels like exile.”

“It’s not Paris.” Hannibal sighed. “The men are charmless and self-obsessed, the women are superficial and simple.”

“In need of a little societal restructure?”

“The Italians are too self-congratulatory for revolution.” Hannibal laughed. “They’d have to renounce 1700 years of cultural imperialism.”

“You’re a hero in Paris, Hannibal.” She paused. “The lives you saved…”

“Bedelia.” Hannibal cut her off, lifting her feet to remove her boots. “It’s one thing to kill, but what we did to those men as their brothers held them down was little more than torture. It would have been kinder to slit their throats.”

“They owe you their lives.”

“My days as a surgeon are behind me.” Hannibal sighed. “I return to Paris and Napoleon will have me traipsing across the borders cutting musket balls from boys until I end up full of them myself.”

“I know you, Hannibal.” Bedelia leaned forward, eyeballing him. “You’re bored. Once you tire of singing for your supper you’ll orchestrate your own exit. Your tongue only has so many platitudes for the rude. You can only bear to flatter patrons and their mistresses for so long.”

“Paris is over, Bedelia.” Hannibal ran his fingers up her calves beneath her trousers, shifting his chair closer to rest his head on the inside of her thigh. “You brought the best part of it to Bologna.”

“Save that tongue for the women of your patrons, Hannibal.” She brushed the hair from his eyes, gently kissing his forehead.

“I’ve been saving it for you.”

Hannibal reached up, unbuttoning her vest and shirt, faintly amused at viewing men’s’ clothing from the opposite angle. He slipped the braces from her shoulders and she lifted her weight obligingly as he peeled down the ill-fitting trousers hiding her perfect form. Hannibal mouthed at the inside of her thigh.

“You know, Bedelia,” He teased her absently with a fingertip. “Men have started wars over far more trivial things than this.”

“I’m not staying in Bologna, Hannibal.”

“I know.” He nipped at the tendon of her groin, fingers tangled in his hair, breath hot against her flesh. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeply, drinking in her scent. He spread her slowly with his tongue, tasting, suckling. 

“I see you haven’t forgotten your French.” She breathed, fingers twisting in his hair.

“I’m a little out of practice.” He paused, humming against her. “But it still slides off the tongue.”

“Shhh.”

**Author's Note:**

> \- The genesis of this came from Rembrandt's 'The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp' and the thought that a man of Hannibal's 'talents' would have been a rare find as an anatomy expert. I moved forward 150 years to add some kind of semi-meaningful narrative where a female protagonist was realistic.
> 
> \- The Palazzo di Archiginnasio and it's centrepiece dissection theatre was the epicentre of anatomical study throughout the 18th century.
> 
> \- The history of early-modern medicine is terrifying.
> 
> \- Suspend your disbelief and imagine Hannibal delivering his lectures in perfect, lightly accented Latin.


End file.
